By Kevin Rossi, MD
I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer and welcome to our Los Angeles Academy of Family Physicians website.
I just had arthroscopic surgery on my knee as a result of a running injury and I took a couple days off. I don’t remember my last sick days, it has been so long and I’m not complaining! It’s nice taking a break from practice … although I did do a little on-line EHR work.
My time off got me reflecting on two things: my own aging, and presidential politics and how they relate to our great specialty of family medicine.
My knee surgery reminds me that I’ll get a few years more of running before osteoarthritis sets in. I will have to adapt and, perhaps, do more non-weight bearing exercise like swimming. Our specialty of family medicine is in middle age and we baby boomers are trying to adapt to the changes in the field.
In my era, most medical students chose family medicine because of the breadth of care. We all did hospital work, pediatrics, office minor surgery and even some OB. The field has changed and most family physicians have narrowed their scope. I believe care for chronic disease, patient centered medical homes and electronic health records have driven much of this change. Nonetheless, many of my younger colleagues seem to have satisfying careers mostly doing ambulatory care. I won’t even guess what family medicine will look like in 30 years. I’m sure that most of our work will not be office visits given how much electronic work we do now.
During my convalescence, I also watched too many presidential election events.
I’m glad I don’t watch too much of this regularly, but it’s becoming pretty clear that the race will be pretty tight. Will it make a difference to our specialty if the Republicans or Democrats secure the presidency and the Legislature? In my advocacy visits on behalf of family medicine, I’m always interested to see how Democratic the LA County Delegation is.
We just sponsored a dinner on the Westside where Democratic Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas spoke to us on health issues, but particularly the homeless problems in the State and LA County. I’ve always been impressed by how remarkably aligned the specialty and the blue party are. I am impressed by the energy and plans invested in improving this escalating problem.
However, I’ve also had the chance to meet with a few Republican legislators in DC and Sacramento. I’ve found them and their staffs to be very supportive of primary care and our mission as well as supporting community health centers. In fact, Republicans were some of the initial proponents of the health center movement years ago.
Family medicine benefits from this bipartisan support and I’m not too worried that our specialty will be hugely affected by the outcome of our election in November. That doesn’t mean we’ll still not have to continue to advocate for our patients and members. After all, quality and value of medical care is based on the bedrock of solid primary care medicine.
Thanks for listening, and be sure to RSVP for upcoming meeting event next month.
